


The Weight of A Heart

by AGlassRoseNeverFades, BelladonnaWyck, Liana_Medea, raiast, Selyne, The_German_Grim_Reaper



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dark Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter likes to play games, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Sort of murder fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:54:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades, https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelladonnaWyck/pseuds/BelladonnaWyck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liana_Medea/pseuds/Liana_Medea, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiast/pseuds/raiast, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selyne/pseuds/Selyne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_German_Grim_Reaper/pseuds/The_German_Grim_Reaper
Summary: The first letter came nearly a year after the fall.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 24
Kudos: 222
Collections: ACOC Server Compilation





	The Weight of A Heart

**Author's Note:**

> The following lovely authors contributed to this story: AGlassRoseNeverFades, Belladonnawyck, ByTheFireside27, Liana-Medea, Raiast, ScornAndIvory, Selyne, The_German_Grim_Reaper

The first letter came nearly a year after the fall. Will had long since left his family behind in Maine, bringing only Buster and Winston with him when he'd gone back to the familiar, safe boat yards of Biloxi. 

He wondered, non-helpfully, whether Hannibal knew Molly had filed for divorce, the paperwork still sitting unsigned on Will's side table, received mere days before Hannibal's letter. And it _was_ Hannibal's letter, Will hadn't even read it yet and he could tell from the heavy cream envelope and the pretentious red wax seal. 

He plucked it up on his way to the couch with his fresh bottle of bottom shelf whiskey - something Hannibal would hate - and collapsed onto the cushions with a groan. His entire body still ached, even after all this time, and his stubble had grown in enough to nearly fully conceal his scar. 

He traced along his jaw idly before sitting the whiskey between his legs and slipping his finger beneath the envelope flap. It was satisfying to see the wax crumble under the pressure, equally appealing to watch his finger split open against the thick paper and stain it copper like blood drops on snow. 

He'd known Hannibal wasn't dead, so the letter itself wasn't surprising. What had been surprising was the hollow ache Hannibal's absence had left behind once Will had woken up alone in an unfamiliar bed. His bones felt heavy, his skin too tight across them, and the memory left a bitter, acidic taste on his tongue. He took a breath to steady himself and opened the flap. 

" _Dearest Will,_ " - and wasn't that a bittersweet blow to his ego. After a year of silence, of failing to push Hannibal from his thoughts, it was _Dearest Will._

_Nearly a year has passed since we last stood face to face, bloodied and victorious beneath the moon, and still I recall with perfect clarity the dark crimson staining your pale skin, the fevered haze flooding your eyes._

_You saw, as much as I did, what we could become together. Perhaps you feared it as much as I did as well, for in lieu of embracing that jarring clarity you chose once more to deny your instincts and instead pitched us into the sea._

_I still feel the absence of you like a missing limb, inarguably gone and better forgotten. History would not denote me a man prone to sentiment, but aesthetically inclined as I am I still find myself seeking balance and beauty in all things._

_We changed one another, whether by chance or intention. I still reminisce frequently of the ways I changed you. Do you remember the first time you changed me?_

_Yours, constantly, H_

Will stared at the words before him, obstinately deciding he wouldn't play Hannibal's game even as his mind started twisting apart the scant amount of words in an attempt to decipher them. 

He knew there was a larger message within the text - unsurprising, when it came to a man like Hannibal - but he kept snaring himself upon the claim Will had changed Hannibal. It wasn't until he allowed his mind to drift back to the point of their meeting and through every interaction there since, that Will caught what Hannibal might be referring to. 

_"We're on a case, you have to make exceptions sometimes. It's just a little fast food; it's not going to kill you." Will had scoffed as he passed the grease-spotted paper bag to Hannibal in the passenger seat._

_"Why, then, do I feel as though my anatomical makeup will be forever marred?" Hannibal had responded drolly as he took a hesitant sniff of the bag's contents and immediately scowled._

Will had laughed at him then, and he felt his lips twitching up now in time with the memory. He ferociously quashed it. How embarrassing, to think Hannibal could still move him like this even after a year. Even after everything. Hannibal had taken a few bites out of an "artisan chicken sandwich" and assured Will it lived up to none of those words. 

He'd then referred to his lackluster McDonald's as Faustian, which had set Will cackling so hard he'd nearly had to pull the car over. When his eyes cleared enough to see straight and he felt like he wouldn't kill them both if he took his eyes off the road for a second, he looked over at Hannibal. 

To apologize for the outburst, maybe? He didn't remember. It hadn't been important. Hannibal looked back, body shifted as much as he could under the seatbelt to face Will. His eyes glittered and there was a small smile on his face as he watched Will. Will turned back from the road, suddenly a little too warm and a little too wary to be comfortable.

It had been early on in their relationship, after all. He still wasn't aware of Hannibal's eating habits or his casual manipulations in this memory. There, they were just two men in a car, friends and occasionally coworkers. They'd made casual conversation for the next few minutes, somehow, and when Will looked over again the cooling fries were untouched but the sandwich was gone. 

_"See?" he'd said. "That wasn't so bad." Hannibal had smiled again, that fondness returning._

_"I've certainly had worse, though you'll have to forgive me if I don't give that credit to the line chefs. I've found that even the most unpalatable meal can be made acceptable with the right company."_

Will took a swig of the whiskey, the warmth sliding down his throat a poor companion to the sharp ache in his chest. He tried to smother the laugh rising up in him. He already knew the taste of it, but one sharp exhale of smothered laughter, then another, and it released in a burst, uncontrolled, desperate, and tasting like he knew it would, of grief and salt. 

Will sank back into the chair; he rubbed his hands over his cheeks and mouth, pressing his palms into his eyes, a weak attempt at stemming the hot tears wetting his face. Will took a breath, deep into his chest, forcing the heaving of his body to slow. He released the air in his lungs in a single long exhale, and calm trickled back into his nervous system. 

A wet nose bumped at his naked knee, and Will gave Winston a watery smile, “I’m fine, thanks." He scratched Winton's neck, until the dog seemed reassured, "You’re a good boy.” 

So what was Hannibal alluding to? Will huffed, this time with real humor. Hannibal could never just be easy. They seemed to always be playing a game. That had been one of their first cases together, where the shift towards friendship had happened. Driving east along the highway, following the snaking curves of the Winooski river, Will had told Hannibal that he had always meant to come to Burlington when the season was right, reel in Atlantic salmon, and make use of the dam and the angler-famous Salmon Hole. 

_Burlington._ That had to be what Hannibal meant. But why would he choose somewhere so far away? It wasn’t as though Will’s separation from Molly was recent, despite his hesitation to sign the divorce papers. Hannibal had to know he lived in Biloxi now, over ten hours away by car.

“Honestly,” Will grumbled, ruffling the top of Winston’s head as he glowered at the letter clutched tightly in his other hand. “Couldn’t he have just given me an address?” 

Even assuming he’d translated the letter correctly, this was a risky move. How long would Hannibal wait for him? Would he be expected to leave now, right away, or would Hannibal leave time for him to get his affairs in order and book a plane ticket? 

It was like Hannibal had chosen the most far-away place on purpose. He probably had; he would want to make sure Will was really committed to rejoining him, that he hadn’t come on a whim. That definitely seemed like something Hannibal would do, the manipulative bastard. 

_Wait._ Was he seriously considering this? Will had worked so hard for the past year to put Hannibal out of his mind, to recover from the damage that had been done to his psyche. Even if it hadn’t worked, often still finding himself dreaming of Hannibal, dreaming of a world in which he hadn’t tipped them over the edge of that cliff. 

This was a bad idea. Then again, Will had never been known for making good decisions. 

Decision made, Will quickly put his affairs in order and bought a ticket on the next flight out, on his way to Burlington. It would be a rush, but...he needed this. 

He didn’t go to Burlington immediately, which only furthered the frantic cadence his heart was beating against his rib cage. Jack knew where he was, had known all along, Will was certain. 

But he also seemed to know enough to know Hannibal wasn’t with him, so he’d blissfully left Will alone. Instead, Will went to Atlanta, got a connecting flight to Nashville. He rented a car in Nashville and made the nearly eight hour drive to Burlington, stopping only once for gas. By the time he made it to the city he felt calmer than he had in months, maybe even in years, a sense of finality coming over him. He would meet with Hannibal and they would either end one another or... Or. 

...Or they would be together, leaving together like a part of him wanted already before Hannibal had gutted him. Like a part of him wanted at the cliff - that part that liked what they were doing to the Dragon, the part that genuinely wanted to be the man Hannibal liked, even back then. That part - he tried to drown it out, he even liked to think Hannibal had cut it out, while he gutted him - always came back, even if its whisperings were unheard. Maybe, maybe this time, he would listen to it? 

He supposed there would be no way to know for sure until he saw Hannibal again, until he could look into those cold, sharp eyes and lose himself in Hannibal’s thoughts. Would he react with violence, drawing a knife as he had in Florence and aiming to kill? Or would he embrace him, breathe in his air and allow his darkness out to play? 

He would be figuring that out sooner rather than later. It was early in the morning when Will arrived in the city, almost ready to fall asleep at the wheel. But he drove the rest of the way to the river, ignoring the urge to pull over and find a hotel, stopping only when he reached the parking lot closest to the dam. 

He was too tired to look for Hannibal right now, but he parked in the shade and sighed, reclining the seat of his rental car and allowing his eyes to drift shut. Maybe Hannibal would be there when he woke up. 

Will woke to a banging on his driver's side window, and a blinding white light shining in his eyes. 

"Sir?" The light lowered, and Will squinted. A police officer. With a sigh, he turned on the rental and rolled the window down. 

He clocked the time. He had slept for six hours. Christ. The parking lot was as deserted as it had been earlier, the edges of the forest barely visible before it vanished into pitch black. "Yes, Officer," Will peered at the badge, making a quick mental note of the badge number, "Ellis?" 

"Everything all right, sir?" Ellis was green, probably only a year out of the academy. Still polite, unassuming. 

Will adjusted his glasses. "Everything is just peachy." Will made an attempt at a smile, "Just waiting for a friend." 

Officer Ellis nodded, as though that was a perfectly good reason. Didn't seem to consider that it was much likelier Will was waiting on a drop, or acting as a fence. Anything other than his words at face value. Hannibal would eat him alive. "Ok, well, I really would suggest calling your friend? It is going to be below zero tonight." 

A horrible, sinking thought occurred to Will for the first time. "How's the fishing around these parts? We were thinking of hitting the dam." 

"Oh, well. If you're looking to fish you're in the wrong place. This portion of the river, from about the first rainbow bridge to the dam is closed." 

"Closed." Will repeated the word. He had rushed. Been too eager to think. He had told Hannibal he wanted to come back when the fish were in season. 

"Yep. To protect the sturgeon. Sorry to be the one to tell you." Officer Ellis did actually look sorry. Will closed his eyes a moment, pushing down his frustration. 

"Right. Got to be careful about endangered fish, would hate to lose them all together." Hannibal had sent the letter at this time for a reason. Will was filled with a familiar urge to punch Hannibal. Wrap his hands around his neck. Intimate. What had he missed? 

His thoughts felt chaotic, and he missed his dogs and his favorite shitty whiskey and his mattress with the rusting, broken springs. If he thought too long on the things he missed a certain face floated behind his eyes, burned into his eyelids like an afterimage of the sun. An imago of a long lost loved one. 

_Perhaps not quite so lost after all._

He said his goodbyes to the officer and put the car in drive, driving on autopilot through the sleepy town with the running mantra of _what had he_ _missed_ tossing through his mind. 

Hannibal Lecter couldn't just say what he meant, that would just be absurd. No, he had to hook Will, had to test him - even now - to see whether he was still worthy. For once Will wanted Hannibal to be the one proving his worth. And not by absurdly turning himself into the FBI as though his capture were a consolation prize to Jack Crawford and a snide jab at Will's stability. He wanted him to mean it. 

But his words weren’t the only way Will had to track Hannibal down. They were the easiest way, yes, surely the way Hannibal had intended for Will to find him- but either there was a second hidden meaning to the letter or Hannibal genuinely expected him to wait another three months for fishing season. 

Either way, Will wasn’t going to play his game anymore. He found a cheap hotel and booked a room, not finding it within himself to smile at the poor desk worker. When he got inside, the first thing he did was deadbolt the door and then he quickly searched the room to make sure Hannibal wasn’t hiding out of sight. It was a ridiculous thought, but he honestly wouldn’t have put it past the cannibal to predict Will’s hotel choice and lie in wait. Thankfully, or perhaps infuriatingly, Hannibal was nowhere to be seen and Will could get to work on the letter. 

He pulled it out from where it had been tucked away, perfectly hidden, in the bottom of his suitcase. If there was no discernible meaning in the words, then maybe the paper…? 

Hannibal always had liked fancy things, and this paper certainly fit his style. It was the sort of classy, ridiculously expensive paper that was probably only sold at a select few stores. If he could figure out where Hannibal bought it, maybe he could get a current location from there. 

Of course, there was always the chance Hannibal had somehow managed to make paper out of ground up bone and tissue because never in the history of man had anyone ever been as committed to his bit as Hannibal was. Additionally, there were no marks on the paper other than what Hannibal had left—he would have to search for the seller by paper type, and without his FBI contacts that would take awhile. Doable, but time consuming. 

For a moment, Will wondered if this was Hannibal trying to tell him to be patient. The lengthy process of tracking down the manufacturer, possibly leading him to Burlington well before the correct season... no. There was something else in the letter. There had to be. 

As his eyes traced back over the letter, Will imagined tossing the paper into the trash and driving back to Biloxi. He was going out of his mind trying to find a man who had, time and time again, manipulated and betrayed him, gutted him literally and metaphorically. It seemed Hannibal was forever dangling bait and seeing how long it would take Will to come running. 

But Will had changed before, and he could change again. He could just... go home. The memory of Hannibal's hand curling into his shirt, bloody and trembling, rose unbidden and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, two phrases came into focus. Like a missing limb. _Beauty and balance in all things._

Fucking _Graham_. Fucking Graham, _North Carolina._

Will recalled the case clearly, it _had_ started in Burlington. They’d stayed over an entire weekend, Will hearing from several locals about their favorite fishing spots before there was a break in the case that took them a few miles away to the city of Graham. 

Of course Hannibal Lecter would have the absolute worst sense of humor. They’d found their killer in Graham, and a whole slew of body parts being meticulously weighed on a bronze scale, and looking back Will is certain the gleam in Hannibal’s eyes at the connection had been something entirely other than simple mirth. 

Perhaps that was when Hannibal had first let himself truly entertain the idea of Will as a protege. Except protege tasted bitter and wrong on his tongue, burned through his mind like battery acid. He wasn’t just a _protege_ for Hannibal, he was a _partner._ And that’s what made him dangerous. 

The case had been their usual, which was to say it was ridiculously grandiose and elaborate. The killer's name had been Astoria Carlyle, one of the few prized female serial killers. It was almost for the best that she hadn't survived the case; just picturing Chilton's glee at the possibility of an interview with her made Will shudder. 

Her modus operandi had been to bludgeon her victims to death before dismembering them and placing the parts on makeshift scales. She'd pulled off a truly impressive amount of DIY crafting in the mix. Her scales had ranged from bronze, store-bought scale up to trash can lids rigged to a chain. 

_"Do you know," Hannibal had told him looking at the viscera in front of them, "that the Egyptians once believed that after death, your heart was weighed against a feather from the headdress of the goddess Ma'at? If the heart was heavier than the feather, it would be seen as impure and fed to the Devourer of Souls, Ammit."_

_There was no feather on the scale in front of them. Only two hearts, aortas roughly severed._

_"And here they're being weighed against each other. Winner gets to make it to heaven?"_

_"Immortality," Hannibal corrected with a smile. "The winner gets immortality. The loser, depending on which myths you read, endures an eternity of torment in Ammit's belly. I pity those Anubis found unworthy."_

_Will snorted. "I pity Ammit. An eternity consuming the hearts of the unworthy, being thrown only the refuse of humanity to take into herself? I think at some point I'd be sick of it."_

_Hannibal had looked at him, lips quirking up in a wry grin and saying " I shall be sure to feed you only the worthiest hearts, then." And Will, because he was still young and stupid, had laughed and thanked him for his consideration._

The next time he had seen bronze scales was in the crime scene photos of the judge in charge of deciding whether or not he was the Chesapeake Ripper. Will spared a moment to wonder what his heart weighed these days.

Ultimately, Will found himself rolling up in front of a nearly bucolic scene, a farmhouse nestled up against a verdant forest, surrounded by even more of a sea of acreage than his Wolf Trap house. 

It would be quaint, beautiful even if one didn't know the blood staining the walls and seeping into the floorboards, mixing with the mortar and bedrock of the house until it was as much a part of it as the very foundation itself. 

Astoria had found it in her time of need, had converted it to a place for her becoming. Will wondered, idly, if it would be a place of new evolution for himself as well. 

He tapped his fingers against his steering wheel as he contemplated the empty vastness stretching out all around him. This was a place he could get lost in. Maybe he should have bought this little house of horrors instead of returning to his roots in Biloxi. What little good it had done him to be there.

He forced himself out, compelled forward by twinning threads of fate - or circumstance - did it matter which? The front door was unsurprisingly unlocked, and Will didn't have to search long before he found it. 

Another thick cream envelope. It seemed Hannibal Lecter _was_ playing games, or at the very least found himself terribly clever sending Will on this ridiculous journey. 

Will's fingers didn't tremble this time as he opened the letter and shook it free. He read through the contents quickly and tucked it in his back pocket, leaving without looking any further into the house, certain he wouldn't find Hannibal here either. 

He was therefore incredibly surprised to notice the person waiting in his vehicle.

Jack Crawford didn't seem larger than life anymore, something about falling into the Atlantic and surviving enough to evaporate the intimidation Will once felt like water droplets under a relentless summer sun. "'lo Jack."

Jack gestured to the house behind Will, a strange smile on his face that didn't match the furrow between his brows. "Doing a greatest hits roadtrip?" 

Will laughed, the sound hollow even to his own ears. "You've been following me."

"Had your name flagged as soon as you booked your flight." He doesn't comment on the zig-zag path Will took to get here and Will doesn't offer an explanation. 

"I felt the need for some clarity, I suppose. You remember Astoria?" 

Jack's eyes are impossibly dark and Will thought, for just a moment, that he might finally admit he'd failed Will in every meaningful way and he'd kill him in some Abrahamic sacrifice; start over again with the next one. 

"She was certainly a person with clarity. The wrong kind, I'd argue, but chock-full of it. She believed what she was doing was right; thought she was separating the wheat from the chaff. Her methods weren't particularly agreeable, but I see what you mean. What have you been weighing, Will?" 

"I'm _weighing_ my past, Jack, evaluating choices made and their consequences. You might think of doing the same." 

Jack Crawford might not have still seemed larger than life to Will, but he was still a big man. Even with a cane in one hand, bags under his eyes that Will could have fit Hannibal's entire wardrobe in, and his hair more salt than pepper, he still carried a certain weight. 

He looked, Will thought, like a mountain at the first brush of winter. Big, imposing, just beginning to accumulate snow on its weary peak. He had to suppress a snort at the thought. It looked like the mountain had finally come to Muhammad. Jack gazed at him, dark eyes calm and exhausted. 

"Done a lot of weighing over the years. Done nothing but some days. I've been trying to weed out what I should regret and what I do." Will felt his face twist into a grin, sharp and bitter. 

"And where do I fall, Jack?" 

"I don't know. I pushed you when I shouldn't have, and I didn't believe you when I should have. I trusted Hannibal with you. That, I'll always regret. But I tried my best to keep as many people as I could safe, and put as many killers as I could away. It's hard to regret the things I did for justice." 

"Right, justice," Will laughed. "I'm sure that's incredibly comforting to Miriam Lass." 

Miriam Lass had killed herself with a single bullet to the soft palate six months after Will and Hannibal had slain Dolarhyde together. A year ago Jack would have yelled at Will until he had run out of voice. This Jack just sat. 

"What about you, Will? How much does your heart weigh these days?" he asked, shifting in the passenger seat where six years and a lifetime ago Hannibal had condescended to eat a shitty chicken sandwich. The anger that overtook Will was unexpected only in its ferocity. 

"Why are you really here, Jack? What possessed you to drag yourself away from your routine of disciplinary hearings and TV dinners? This was a long way to come to ask me about my heart." 

"Came to ask you about your nose, actually. I've never been much of an outdoorsman, Will, but I know when a hound's caught a scent."

He was angry at Jack, at Hannibal, at this game that kept playing out the same way over and over again. Hannibal must have known Jack would follow him. Will should have known too, would have if he'd been able to think straight since the first letter came. 

The letter that now sat open on the center console between them, Jack doing him the courtesy of not pretending he hadn't read it. It was another goddamn test of loyalty. 

_Whose man are you, Will, mine or Jack's?_

It would serve the bastard right if he just handed the second letter over to Jack right now. It wouldn't heal the ugly hole in his chest that said maybe Hannibal didn't really know Will that well after all, if he still thought the man felt beholden to Jack of all people. It wouldn't erase the whisper in his mind that said maybe the continued mistrust was warranted, when even after they took down a dragon together, Will still hadn't been ready to commit just yet. _Make a decision, Will. Stop wallowing. Stop waiting. Make. A. Decision._

"I lost the scent at Salmon Hole. Came here hoping maybe I missed something, but..." He shrugged, laughed, self-deprecating and sad in a way he didn't have to fake. "He was never really here. The letter says it all but I didn't want to believe it. _Gone and better forgotten._ It's a last goodbye. One final twist of the knife. He's saying it's over, Jack." 

"Is he?" Jack looked at him, hard and assessing, but weary down to his bones. 

Will only had to look just as weary and worn down to be convincing enough it seemed, again easier than it should be because of how much truth there was to the bit. Will had never outright lied to Jack, in all the years they'd known each other. Jack got out silently and walked back to his own car. Will pulled back onto the road and thought about the letter in his back pocket, much shorter than the last--

" _As tempting as it is to return to the past, there is nothing for us there. Go home, Will. Go home and look to the future, and all the promise it holds._ " 

Will took his time driving back to Nashville. He booked a flight back to Biloxi- directly this time, no longer feeling the need to cover his tracks- and got back only three days after he had left. He wasn’t sure what to expect when he got home, but Hannibal’s letter had made it clear to expect something, and he couldn’t help but hope that it would be the man himself. 

He didn’t go straight home, nerves electrified at the thought that Hannibal might be so close. He stopped by his neighbor’s house first. Miss Angela was a very old woman, sweet as anything, and always willing to look after his dogs for a few days while he was away. 

Not that he went away often, but when he did, he always left them with her. He pulled up in her driveway and got out of the car, smiling as he prepared to greet his dogs. But when Miss Angela opened the door, her eyes crinkling in happiness, no dogs came running. 

“Back so soon?” She asked him, friendly as ever. 

“Soon?” He repeated. “I’m just here to pick up my dogs… thanks again for looking after them.” 

She blinked, looking confused. “Your boyfriend came by to pick them up the other day. Such a lovely gentleman, I can’t believe you never introduced us.” 

“My… boyfriend?” Will repeated dumbly. There was only one person she could be talking about. Had Hannibal been here? 

Will made the only choice left to him. He went home. It felt as seamless as breathing to open his door to the smell of cooking meat and to see the shape of Hannibal filling a spot in his kitchen that once seemed as hollow as the ache in his chest. 

Buster and Winston watched as Hannibal made dinner, probably thoroughly spoiled and fat on Hannibal’s bribery. 

“Hello, Will." 

"You sent me on a wild goose chase," Will responded immediately, not letting himself get lost in the memories of those words echoing up through the years.

"I needed to make sure you still saw me." 

"I've always seen you, Hannibal. I just didn't always know what I was looking at."

“Perhaps I also needed time to settle a few affairs and thought your journey might intrigue Dear Uncle Jack enough for him to go lax.” 

That sounded more realistic, exactly like the Hannibal Will remembered. Will stepped closer to the stove, noticed Hannibal was making heart for dinner and couldn’t help but comment. 

Will nodded to the heart. "Been thinking about worthiness a lot lately?" 

Hannibal paused, contemplative and almost eerily silent. “I weighed mine and found it wanting.” He stopped again, removing the heart from the pan to a plate already prepared with fresh rosemary and thyme. “It’s lamb.” 

Will raised a brow at that. “I never minded eating at your table, Hannibal. I minded being lied to and treated like the punch line in some epic joke only you understood.” 

Hannibal’s eyes gleamed, as dark as they had been the last night Will had seen them, before he’d decided to toss them into the sea to be reborn; or to die, he hadn’t been overly concerned at the time as long as the outcome had been together. 

They were seated in a companionable silence, moving around one another from kitchen to table as though they’d always existed within the same space. Will picked up his fork and pierced into the thinly sliced heart, bringing it to his lips. It felt a lot like falling had; exhilarating and exposing and clarifying all at once. Hannibal smiled, showing crooked, human teeth. 

“Bon Appetit.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a collaboration between several authors from the wonderful (18+) ACOC server! We're a collective of Fannibals who love to nerd out about mushrooms and talk about various creative pursuits! Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/ZHRV2Tq) !


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